


to go with grace

by dottie_wan_kenobi



Series: Harry Potter (series) Fics [17]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Ambiguous/Open Ending, Angst, Background Polyamory, Betrayal, Canonical Character Death, F/M, Ghosts, Halloween 1981, Multi, POV Lily Evans Potter, ig??? sirius and remus aren't present in this fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-28
Updated: 2020-10-28
Packaged: 2021-03-08 19:01:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,937
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27251626
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dottie_wan_kenobi/pseuds/dottie_wan_kenobi
Summary: It was all she could do to stand tall against him, to defy him as she had already before. It was all she could do to look him in his eyes and defend Harry. It was all she could do to push away the heartrending fear and pain, the what-ifs and the thoughts of everyone but her son. It was all she could do.Lily Evans Potter, a widower at 21, dead at 21. A ghost at 21.
Relationships: James Potter/Lily Evans Potter, Sirius Black/Remus Lupin/James Potter/Lily Evans Potter
Series: Harry Potter (series) Fics [17]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1799116
Comments: 4
Kudos: 14





	to go with grace

**Author's Note:**

> me showing up once again with a ghost fic, ready to hurt my audience with death feels compounded by betrayal and lives cut short too soon: hey <3
> 
> this is what I like to call Me Being Emo About Jily
> 
> title, of course, comes from a Taylor Swift song (my tears ricochet!)

Lily never intended to become a ghost after she died. The thought had always seemed too horrible to entertain for long—existing forever, decades and centuries after her death, with a non-corporeal form, good for nothing but hauntings and overstaying her welcome? No thank you. The only benefit she’d ever seen was being able to stick around her loved ones, but when she thought about the subject—laying in bed, staring at the ceiling and listening to James breathe and trying desperately not to think about everyone she’d lost—she’d pictured herself as an old woman. Maybe her hair would be white, but just as lovely as it ever was no matter what color, and maybe she’d have all kinds of wrinkles and age spots. She would still be singing the same songs she did now, wearing clothes she stole from James or Sirius or Remus, and she would have her children and her grandchildren and her great-grandchildren by her side. Passing on would be okay. However it happened, by illness or age or in a duel or  _ anything _ , it would be okay. 

A life would’ve been lived, a long one. She would be satisfied, ready to go, secure in the knowledge that her loved ones—in these imaginings, it was James and Sirius and Remus and Harry, and formless blobs where others would be, other children and grandchildren—weren’t alone.

Upon talking about it with her lovers, they’d all agreed—becoming a ghost was for the pits. They would die elderly, happy, and if Sirius were to get his way, still as randy as they ever were. Together, because there was simply no other way to go.

But then there was the Fidelius Charm, and Peter fucking Pettigrew betrayed them, and James died on the steps. Young, healthy, whole until he wasn’t anymore. It was only minutes before she was gone, too, but those minutes were fierce and furious, and grief gripped her like it hadn’t ever before. It could hardly sink in, that the life she’d known was obliterated, that all those thoughts and plans and promises were null and void. James wouldn’t be beside her in her old age—they would never have another child, never figure out a loophole to marry the others, never celebrate their fifth or tenth or twentieth anniversaries. She would never know him any older than he was then, would never see the salt to match the pepper of his hair, wouldn’t get to tease him for being too old to play with the others as Prongs.

When Voldemort offered her her own life, there was the briefest, awful flash of living—of running to wherever Sirius and Remus were, without James, without Harry. Living in those few minutes was already impossible. She couldn’t imagine more, losing both of them, losing her husband and her baby, half of her heart.

It was all she could do to stand tall against him, to defy him as she had already before. It was all she could do to look him in his eyes and defend Harry. It was all she could do to push away the heartrending fear and pain, the what-ifs and the thoughts of everyone but her son. It was all she could do.

Lily Evans Potter, a widower at 21, dead at 21. A ghost at 21.

She woke up on the floor of the nursery, and sat up, pulling away from her own body. There was no one there. No wailing from Harry, no maniacal laughter from Voldemort, no horrible horrible thuds of hitting the wooden flooring or wonderful wonderful laughs and chatter from James. The clock on the wall ticked. It was morning and Lily was see-through and her body was still where it landed when Voldemort killed her.

Standing, she wondered if ghosts could vomit. Then she walked—floated—out into the hallway and saw James’ body and learned that while they couldn’t, they could feel faint. They could dry heave, and cry, and let out keening wails that echoed through the broken house.

_ James _ , she thought.  _ James, James, James. _

She sat there on the top step, sobbing and screaming, pleading for this all to be some awful joke, a nightmare that she could wake up from. The house wasn’t destroyed, and James wasn’t dead, and she wasn’t a ghost, and—and her thoughts stuttered, the hope flying away. All she could think was,  _ where the fuck was Harry, _ where was he, where where where. 

There was suddenly a hand on her shoulder, and she jumped a meter into the air, her unnecessary breath catching in her non-existent lungs. Swinging her head around, she came face to translucent-face with her husband.

“Lily? Lily?” He asked, his voice thick and clumsy, so different from life. So different from that night when he’d said, “I would never become a ghost, not for anything,” when they were a few months younger, a few months stupider.

“James?” She replied, horrified to hear how awful she sounded—thready and wobbling, disbelieving. “James!”

He collapsed into her, solid when she clutched him to her chest, shaking as she began wailing all over again. Not for anything, he’d said, and she’d agreed back then, but he was so stupid and so amazing, and he’d done it and—and she wouldn’t be alone. She would always have him, and he would always have her, and though she was still certain ghosthood would be miserable, it would be tolerable with him by her side.

“Lily, Lily, Lily,” he said over and over again, his hand cupping the back of her head, his glasses fogged up.

They sat there for a very long time. The sun rose and settled in the sky, and Lily watched through the blown up roof, and she thought, constantly, of Harry. They talked about the previous night, through endless tears and deliberate avoidance of looking down the stairs. It broke her heart to know that he’d died trying to save them, only for it to not work in the end. It broke his when she recounted getting Harry to his crib, standing in front of him to the very last. 

Neither of them said their suspicions for why Voldemort would offer to spare her. They didn’t talk about Snape, or Peter.

They spoke of Sirius and Remus—their lovers, the ones they wanted to marry—and hoped against hope that Sirius hadn’t done something reckless, that Remus wouldn’t fall apart. They wondered where Harry was. Surely with Sirius, because he loved their son and he wouldn’t let anyone take him. They questioned where the hell the Order was, or people from St. Mungo’s who were supposed to come and collect their bodies.

Eventually, someone did come. A Mungo’s worker, Moody and McGonagall. All three stared when they entered, first at James-the-corporeal, then up to James-and-Lily-the-ghosts. Moody didn’t seem all too surprised, but then, he never did.

McGonagall sighed and said, soft with emotion, “Oh, you fools.”

It took much, much too long to see Dumbledore. And it took so, so much of her strength not to jump—fly—across the coffee table in their den at him when he explained what had happened with Harry.

“He’s  _ where _ ?” She demanded, her voice still sounding extremely odd, too thin and too loud, bouncing against the walls. 

“He’s with your sister,” Dumbledore said again, utterly non-plussed.

James glared. “You mean the only people in the whole world we said should not ever have custody of him?”

“You must understand, he has to be with her because of the blood—”

“The blood magic, we know,” Lily and James snapped together. If she were alive still, the vein in her forehead would be throbbing. As it was, there was a dull ache, distant and flickering every time she thought about it directly.

Dumbledore clasped his hands in his lap. “It’s for his protection,” he said again. “You must understand.”

“I understand,” Lily replied, coldly and formally, not noticing the temperature of the room dropping, “that our son should be with Sirius Black right now, or Remus Lupin, or Mary Macdonald, or anyone other than  _ them _ .”

McGonagall let out an uncharacteristic gasp. To Dumbledore, she whispered, “Do they not know?”

Again, she and James spoke in tandem: “Know what?”

With a mighty sigh and a slight frown, Dumbledore said, “Sirius Black betrayed you both last night, by giving the Secret of your location to Voldemort. This morning, he tracked down Peter Pettigrew and killed him, as well as thirteen Muggles.”

“He wouldn’t,” Lily said with no hesitation. “He didn’t.”

“You’ve got it wrong,” James added. His face was terrifyingly blank. “Sirius wasn’t our Secret Keeper. Peter was.”

McGonagall gave them both a sad look, and reached out a hand seemingly to pat James’ before she caught herself and pulled it back in. “Mr. Potter—”

“You needn’t lie for him,” Dumbledore said. “I know the two of you were very close.”

Very close, Lily thought. Very close. He was family, he was a best friend and a lover and a husband. She trusted him with her life and her body and her future, with her baby and with James and Remus. In all her thoughts of the future, he was there—annoying and lovely, shedding fur and causing trouble, coaxing laughs and tears, arguing about the stupidest things.

The last time they saw him, he’d held them both in his arms, pressed kisses to their lips and cheeks and foreheads in goodbye and said,  _ please be careful. I love you. _ Then he’d gone to Harry and done the same, and there’d been a lump in her throat so large it hurt to breathe. When he left, she had to remind herself it wouldn’t be forever.

_ I’d rather be a ghost than a portrait, _ he’d said, glancing across the bed, over James’ back and Remus’ chest. Unlike his horrible mother, he hadn’t said but hadn’t needed to.  _ More freedom, that way. You can go anywhere you want, you aren’t stuck to the wall or wherever someone puts you. _

“I’m not lying for him,” James said. Tight and controlled, too thin and too loud. Bouncing off the walls. “We switched Keepers at the last minute but didn’t tell anyone.”

Dumbledore simply looked at him, a flat sort of gleam in his eye. He didn’t believe them.

“It was supposed to be safer,” Lily continued, feeling defensive and incandescently angry. All she wanted was to be alive, but if she couldn’t have that, then she at least deserved—demanded—to be with Harry, Sirius, and Remus. And for some reason she couldn’t fathom, Dumbledore wasn’t giving them to her, or her to them. “Voldemort would think it was Sirius and go after him, but really it was Peter. The Secret was safe, because Sirius couldn’t give it away.”

There was quiet for a few moments. McGonagall looked convinced. Dumbledore looked thoughtful. James said, “Peter was the spy,” and then he said, “Peter’s dead,” and Lily—she’d always loved Peter. He was a close friend, different from the way Remus or Sirius were, but still important to her. She’d set him up on dates, helped him with hangovers, comforted him when he confided in them that he was scared. When Sirius suggested they make him their Secret Keeper, she’d thanked him, kept to herself that she might’ve preferred Remus over him, because she’d been sure that Peter would do just as well.

That was a week ago. A week, and he’d sold them out. A week, and he’d killed them.

“Good,” she said. There was no expression on her see-through face.

**Author's Note:**

> maybe some day I'll add more to this. bc if James and Lily can speak to Remus and tell him Sirius wasn't the Secret Keeper.... :eyes:


End file.
